Seeley Lake Elementary School will have monkey bars added to its playground this summer.
Two Seeley Lake organizations - Seeley Lake Elementary School and the Clearwater Resource Council - have received the full amount possible - $4,000 - from Missoula County through the Rural Impact Grant program. This program is intended for groups like community councils, nonprofits and schools to be used for projects that "enhance the quality of life" in rural Missoula County.
Last year, the Seeley Lake Lions Club received funding from this grant to hire swimming instructors and the Potomac School District was awarded money for a walk-in cooler to support food safety.
Seeley Lake Elementary School will be adding a climbing structure, which includes monkey bars, to the school's playground this summer. A local company, Pitman Machining, will be building the new addition.
Last year the school's playground was removed and a new one was installed before the school year began. That process fixed some safety concerns of the old wooden playground, which was installed in 2006 and for which the Seeley Lake Community Foundation raised nearly $100,000. The new one ended up being smaller and lacked some of the things the students loved from the old playground, like monkey bars, said Andi Bourne, secretary and treasurer of the elementary school's Parent Teacher Club.
The PTC put out a survey on a Facebook page for elementary school parents to vote on regarding different types of monkey bar or climbing structures.
"Hands down the most expensive one won," Bourne said.
The $13,000 climbing structure will have monkey bars at different heights, rings and pull-up bars. The PTC was able to receive funding from a variety of local organizations including the Seeley Lake Community Foundation Small Grant and Seeley Lake Youth Activities. The school chipped in a share and the remainder was designated to the school from the Rural Impact Grant.
The PTC was also accepted for the community foundation's Change Your Pace Challenge. After a month of fundraising in May and a match provided by the foundation, the PTC plans to purchase new benches and tables for the playground to replace those that were removed last year.
While reserved for the school when classes are in session, the playground is open as a public space during the summer and outside of school hours.
"We're just really excited to offer this to our students at Seeley Lake Elementary, for the community and visitors," Bourne said.
Funds the Clearwater Resource Council received were enough to buy a new motor for the nonprofit's boat that it uses to conduct a variety of water and aquatic invasive species monitoring.
Jon Haufler, board president of the Clearwater Resource Council, said the old motor was too slow and thus not safe enough to get out into the middle of the lakes for sampling. Should a thunderstorm come up, Haufler said, you wouldn't want to be a half an hour out from shore.
CRC samples for different water quality indicators like nitrogen and phosphorus and nitrates and soluble reactive phosphorus. The first two are naturally-occurring nutrients while the second pair are more indicative of human sources, like septic systems. Septic leachate, or the liquid that escapes a septic system through the drainfield, tends to have higher quantities of nitrates and soluble reactive phosphorus, Haufler said.
Clearwater Resource Council also samples for aquatic invasive species like zebra or quagga mussels. To do so, the crew drags nets through 100 feet of water and sends water samples to a lab that tests for elligers, or what become snails. Thankfully, Haufler said, those tests have always come back negative.
The water sampling has to be done at both ends of a lake and in its deepest parts, necessitating a boat, Haufler said. The council gets help from volunteers often, but sometimes the schedule of sampling or the lake they're working on - like Lake Alva, which isn't home to any residents that might have a boat and a dock - leaves them with fewer hands.
"This motor allows us to sample some of the lakes where it's more difficult to line up volunteers when we need sampling done," Haufler said.
The loose schedule for water sampling is from May until September and for aquatic invasive species from late June through September. If anyone with a boat is interested in helping, they can contact Haufler at jon@crcmt.org or Karen Williams, CRC's director of aquatic programs, at karen.williams@crcmt.org.
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